Welcome on my web page. I collect information here on what I do and what I write about. You can also find a lot of information on our company websites: LogiGear.com and TestArchitect.com.
We have published a nice video that summarizes our approach to test automation very well. Go check it out! 
Another good item to have is an eBook we co-wrote with some other companies on Continuous Delivery.
A favorite of mine is LogiGear Magazine, edited by our Michael Hackett. It works with themed issues, without too much pitching of our products or services.
If you have questions or requests, you're welcome write me at hans@happytester.com or hans@logigear.com.
Activities
Last October we had Star West. Because of the COVID 19 situation the conference was virtual. That went surprisingly well. It was easy to manage for me as speaker, and there was a good responsive crowd. My tutorial is based on the notion that good test design is a major contributor to automation success. If you're interested keep an eye on Star East, the sister conference in Spring.
Available on the web is this webinar that I did together with Sauce Labs, focusing on test desgn and automation with Selenium. Click on it to see and hear the recording.
For Eurostar's TestHuddle I also did a webinar, a recording of which you can find here.
Various writings'
Leave No Tester Behind -- in many projects testing and test automation has a hard time keeping up with the sprints. Here are some suggestions to improve this.
Testing Artificial Intelligence: How Low Can You Go? -- in this article I give my take on testing AI systems. You may not need AI to test AI, but plain test cases might not be sufficient either.
Zephyr and DZone featured this article What Makes Testing in Agile Successful?, which summarizes my view on automated testing in agile.
Unit Testing? Consider Taking a Rain Check - Unit testing is handy for simple tests, but can become cumbersome if dependent on a complex configuration. This article explores an alternative approach to such a situation.
Continuous Testing, Continuous Variation - how the repetitive character of pipelines can be used to bring some variation to tests, and to let them more efficiently deal with multiple environments and configurations.
DevOps and Test Automation: You Missed a Spot - in order to be be effective all of the agile team should be in the same sprint, so developers can quickly respond when there is a defect found.
Testing in the Pipeline - some strategies around testing and automation in DevOps, including my take on the CI/CD requirement of 100% stability of tests.
The Cloud is Metered - what companies and organizations are starting to notice is that most cloud usage is charged for, per minute, per gigabyte, etc. This adds a dimension to testing and test management: how much testing do you actually really need.
Testing in Agile and DevOps: Where Are We Going? - DevOps is getting more attention even than Agile. What does this mean for testing?
The Test Automation Design Paradox - testers have a large influence on automation success, but are not always but may not alway have the development experience to be effective in that. This article show the challenge, and how to address it.
Scalability in Automated Testing - on how to make large scale automated testing maintainable.
Using Keywords to Support Behavior Driven Development - suggestions on how keywords can help BDD -- with thanks to Dan North for his kind tweet about this article.
Test Design for Automation: Anti-Patterns - applying the "anti-pattern" concept to test design, in particular with regard to automated tests.
What To Do When Bugs Are Found - Based On When They Are Found - a couple of notes on bugs, in particular in the Action Based Testing context (with test modules etc).
Five Misconceptions about Test Automation - revisiting some common notions about automation.
Improving Application Testability - what you can do in development to make an application easier to test, in particular with automation.
Improving Test Automation - What About Existing Tests? - a common question when going to a new approach to have an automation friendly test design: what do I do with my existing tests?
Designing Data-Driven Tests with Keywords for Automation Success - a number of ways you can work with data in automated tests.
Multi-Station Testing with Actions—The Lead Deputy Model - a way to use keywords (actions) to specify the cooperation of automated tests on multiple computers and/or devices.
For Eurostar I co-wrote Get Automated Testing "Done", a take on how you can fit automated testing into scrum, and make sure the testers stay in sync with the other team members.
Action Based Testing and TestArchitect
There is little doubt that testing and test automation are among the most challenging tasks in the software industry. I'm working in this field since 1994 and still learn something new almost every day. Creating tests can be complex, and automating them brings issues of maintainability, for example making it challenging to have them ready when needed in an agile development cycle ("just in time automation").
In my view the key to success is test architecture, consisting of (1) a well thought through modularized organization of tests and (2) a keyword-driven framework for their automation. These principles form the basis for the Action Based Testing method, that is supported by the TestArchitect tool family. Together they give you a basis for a flexible and maintainable collection of automated tests.
Further Articles and Blogs
Over the years I have written quite a bit about testing and automation topics. Here is a selection.
Management
Action Based Testing
Overview article of the Action Based Testing method in Better Software magazine
Key Success Factors for Keyword Driven Testing
What makes keyword testing successful
The 5% Challenges of Test Automation (PDF)
Uphill challenges and how to meet them
QA All Stars, Building your Dream Team (PDF)
A vision on creating a successful testing and test automation team
Agile Test Development with ABT
How can agile fit into testing
Action Based Testing: The Solution For Agile Test Automation
This was published in our Magazine. It applies ABT to agile projects
Testing and Test Automation in Agile Projects
Published in STP, summarizing the ABT approach for agile projects
Test Governance
How to organize and control testing in an organization
Business Test Policies
What are key policies around testing and software quality, and how to identify them
Testing Under Pressure
Relieving the "crunch zone"
Capitalizing Testware as an Asset
A view of the intrinsic value of tests for the bottom line, independent from the systems they are testing
Software Test Automation: Divide and Conquer
An ancient vision provides a valuable principle for automated testing
Centralize? Decentralize? Concentralize
Another take on the question of centralizing or decentralizing testing and test automation
Methods and practices
Soap Opera Testing
An alternative slightly off-beat, but potentially effective technique for test design
Action Figures
Model-based testing using keywords
Automation and Requirements
How do system requirements play into testing
Bonus Bugs
New bugs as side effect of system changes, and how to prevent them
Is Action Based Testing an Automation Technique?
As a keyword based approach, ABT is not necessarily a way of automating
Is Test Automation the Same as Programming Tests?
No, it is not.
The Potential and Risks of Keyword Based Testing
Often hailed as panacea, this article introduces some reality into the technique that is quickly gaining ground
Are Use Cases Harmful For Test Automation?
Questions about the value of a common practice.
Scalability in Automated Testing
QA set of guidelines to deal with large scale automated testing
Test design
Key Principles of Test Design
Introducing 3 "holy grails" to make testing more effective and achieve better automation
The First Holy Grail of Test Design
Effective breakdown of tests and manageable units, called "test modules"
The Second Holy Grail of Test Design
Selecting the right approach for each test module
The Third Holy Grail of Test Design
Specifying the test cases at the right level of abstraction
Jungle Testing
Expect the unexpected
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